Documents found at the Benghazi site six weeks after the attack confirm Chris Stevens was worried about security
It is being reported in this article that SIX WEEKS after the terrorist attack in Benghazi which led to the deaths of four Americans ‘Foreign Policy Magazine’ walked into the site and found documents which prove Chris Stevens was very worried about security before the attack, and also reported suspicious behavior hours before the attack. The fact that Chris Stevens reported suspicious behavior at the consulate hours before the attack is proof that this attack was not totally unforeseen as has been reported.
How it is possible for documents such as these to still be laying around unsecured a month and a half after the attack is beyond me, and it makes you wonder what documents have fallen into the wrong hands while the United States government failed to secure the site after the attack.
Some of the documents — such as an email from Stevens to his political officer in Benghazi and a flight itinerary sent to Sean Smith, a U.S. diplomat slain in the attack — are clearly marked as State Department correspondence. Others are unsigned printouts of messages to local and national Libyan authorities. The two unsigned draft letters are both dated Sept. 11 and express strong fears about the security situation at the compound on what would turn out to be a tragic day. They also indicate that Stevens and his team had officially requested additional security at the Benghazi compound for his visit — and that they apparently did not feel it was being provided.
That’s not all: Read more…
This is the open thread for Thursday, November 1st; please feel free to leave links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues might come up during the day.
Between this open thread and the open thread scheduled for Sunday you are going to get two ‘Muse’ songs, sorry for the repetition but I already had my election fight song picked out for the last open thread before the election. The suspense must be killing you but I guess you’ll just have to tune in on Sunday to find out what it is. 🙂
On to today’s musical selection it is a song called ‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’ and I picked it out for no other reason than it had the word ‘hurricane’ in the title and Sandy was the big news story (Barack Obama gives his thanks) of the week. If I try real hard I can tie some of the lyrics to the election next week:
you’ve got to change the world
and you use this chance to be heard
your time is now
U.S. officials in Benghazi warned the Obama regime they couldn’t withstand a coordinated attack one month prior to the attack
It is now being reported here that on August 15th–less than one month before the terrorist attack–the United States officials stationed in Benghazi held an emergency meeting because of the deteriorating situation in Libya.
This is how they saw the situation:
RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,
the Emergency Action Committee was also briefed “on the location of approximately ten Islamist militias and AQ training camps within Benghazi … these groups ran the spectrum from Islamist militias, such as the QRF Brigade and Ansar al-Sharia, to ‘Takfirist thugs.’” Each U.S. mission has a so-called Emergency Action Committee that is responsible for security measures and emergency planning.
This report detailed the deteriorating situation on the ground as well as the lack of proper security and it was addressed to Hillary Clinton and was accompanied by a request for more security.
We now know the request for more security was denied so if we look at the facts relayed in this story we can only assume that Hillary Clinton is to blame for denying increased security requests, right? After all Hillary Clinton did take the blame.
Barack Obama to Hurricane Sandy victims: “We leave nobody behind”
Unlike what happened during the Benghazi attack Barack Obama decided to don his Commander-in-Chief hat and take control of hurricane response and rescue efforts thereby showing the American people he was a true leader.
Today he reassured hurricane victims (of which I was one before Barack Obama singlehandedly restored power to Kingston, New Hampshire) that we had nothing to worry about because he had our backs:
This is a tough time for a lot of people; millions of folks all across the Eastern Seaboard, but America’s tougher. And we’re tougher because we pull together, we leave nobody behind, we make sure we respond as a nation and remind ourselves that whenever an American is in need, all of stand together to make sure we’re providing the help that’s necessary.
That is fine, I have nothing against Barack Obama making it known that people who are affected by this storm will receive the help they need to make it through, but I just wish he had felt the same way when the terrorist attack in Benghazi was taking place.
Barack Obama refuses to say when he knew about the Benghazi attack or who he told to protect the personnel that were there
When Mitt Romney tried to pressure Barack Obama during the second debate on Benghazi–before Candy Crowley interfered and saved the president–Barack Obama made the claim that the minute he learned about the attack he issued a directive to do whatever it took to secure all our personnel in Benghazi.
This is a claim he repeated last Friday during an interview on Denver television:
“I can tell you, as I’ve said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives.
“Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to,” Obama continued.
“Number two, we’re going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again.
Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice”
In light of that recent interview CNSNews sent the White House a letter asking some questions including: When did the president learn about the attack? Who did he tell to secure our personnel in Benghazi? Did he watch the event in real time as has been reported, and if he didn’t watch it what was he doing instead?
No power
Hurricane Sandy knocked our power out here at around 3:00 yesterday afternoon. I was able to fire up the generator last evening and was surprised to see I still had cable and internet access.
That changed somewhere around 9:00 last night and it doesn’t appear as if I will have power or internet access for a few days.
I really do not want to be off line during this last critical week heading into such an important election and will do my best to mobile blog whatever happens to come up until we have power back. I’ll be able to access wifi at work a couple of days so hopefully that will help, although half an hour isn’t much time to write a decent post.
I probably won’t be commenting here too much until power comes back, but I will try to keep up, and I probably won’t be commenting too much throughout the blogophere but I will be keeping up with my favorite blogs as best I can.
New Women United ad on Benghazi: When They called
Below is a new ad put out by Women United about the president’s response to the September 11th terrorist attack in Benghazi which starts out with this powerful line: When Barack Obama called the Navy SEALs they got bin Laden, when the Navy SEALs called Barack Obama they got denied.
While Barack Obama is now trying to assert his leadership by showing he is in command during Hurricane Sandy, he is clearly trying to make up for his lack of leadership and his indecisiveness which led to the deaths of four American heroes. Barack Obama said politics must take a backseat to the hurricane, but where was this thinking when he put politics ahead of the lives of American citizens when they were under attack from al Qaeda? In that case he saw it fit to head to Las Vegas for a fundraiser and that is unforgivable.
Here is the new ad:
Barack Obama is hinting that if he wins a second term he would like to create a new position called the ‘Secretary of Business.’ Barack Obama makes this sound good by claiming he would be streamlining the government by consolidating different agencies and putting them under the lead of one man.
As 1984ish as the department head sounds he actually makes it sound like a decent proposal, but this is the quote I find most interesting and I think it tells us more about what Barack Obama really has in mind:
Mr. Obama blamed Congress for such consolidation not happening during his first term because lawmakers have been “very protective about not giving up their jurisdiction over various pieces of government.”
Consolidation hasn’t taken place yet because the Congress doesn’t want to give up jurisdiction in their role in the government. That’s pretty telling isn’t it? Sounds to me like he is upset that Congress hasn’t given more of its constitutionally granted responsibility and authority to the president. What is Barack Obama really trying to consolidate–more power in his hands and less lying with the Congress?
Barack Obama watched the Benghazi terrorist attack in real time and still didn’t send in reinforcements
Late last week we learned the revolting news that three times people on the ground in Libya during the terrorist attack on the United States embassy–which resulted in the deaths of Chris Stevens and three other Americans–asked for help three times and they were denied help three times by someone within the Obama regime.
In spite of the fact that there was a drone flying overhead and people within the Obama regime were watching the attack in real time Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the outrageous statement that help could not be sent in to Benghazi because there wasn’t enough information available at the time.
There’s a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here,” Panetta said Thursday. “But the basic principle here … is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.
The obvious problem with that statement is the fact I mentioned above: there was a drone at the scene which was broadcasting the entire event back to Washington so the Obama regime couldn’t have asked for a better source for intelligence. They were watching the whole attack unfold and they knew exactly what was happening from the beginning.
Open thread for Sunday, October 28th: Ohio edition
Here is the open thread for Sunday, October 28th: please feel free to leave links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues come up during the course of the day.
Over the last couple of weeks I have heard many political pundits say that the candidate who won Ohio would win the election but I found this hard to believe so I started fooling around with one of those electoral map aps and it turns out they are right, although Barack Obama seems to have an easier path to victory if Mitt Romney wins Ohio.
The map I used included Florida as a swing state but gave Pennsylvania to Barack Obama so if Mitt Romney could somehow pull out a win in Pennsylvania it would make his bid for the presidency a whole lot easier. But for the sake of this post let us give Florida to Romney to sort of offset Pennsylvania for Obama. (If Romney doesn’t win Florida it is probably all over anyway.)
America's Watchtower 